CAIRO, 11 April 2005 — Egyptian security forces have arrested three Islamists suspected of planning last week’s suicide bombing in a Cairo bazaar which killed three foreigners, an Interior Ministry source said yesterday. The source added that the suicide bomber who carried out the attack in which two French nationals and an American died was identified as an Egyptian from the Nile Delta region of Qaliobya, north of Cairo.
The suicide bomber — whose name is to be revealed at a news conference at an unspecified date — planned the attack along with the three accomplices, it said.
The trio, who are said to have “Islamist tendencies and motivations” have already appeared before an investigating magistrate. Police are still examining the remains of the suicide bomber’s body.
A preliminary report into the blast showed that the crude bomb had been made from gunpowder and nails. Prosecutors have described the attack as an “isolated act”. The blast was widely condemned and revived old fears of a fresh wave of terror attacks in Egypt, whose economy is heavily reliant on tourism.
An Internet statement whose authenticity could not be verified issued on Friday by a previously unknown group called the Islamic Brigades of Pride in Egypt said it carried out the attack.
Egyptian fundamentalist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which was behind a string of deadly attacks against foreigners in the 1990s, has condemned the attack as irresponsible.
Tourism Minister Ahmed El-Maghrabi also has said the bombing was the act of an individual, not a group. The French Foreign Ministry spokesman, who asked not to be named, said the Frenchman died while being repatriated from Cairo to Paris by plane overnight.
Doctors in Cairo had taken the decision to send the man back to France for treatment, the spokesman said from Paris. The man’s wife, who was less seriously injured in the attack, had already returned to France, a senior Egyptian official said on Friday. The French spokesman declined to name the man or release any personal details.
Maghrabi quoted doctors on Friday as saying the Frenchman, who had been in a critical condition, was out of danger. The bombing, which also injured 11 Egyptians and seven other foreigners, took place in the crowded Moski area of the old city in a street full of shops selling perfumes, carpets, jeweler and souvenirs for tourists.
